Can You Help Your Client Grow Their Business For Free? Then Do It!

Your clients are an incredibly important asset. If you’ve managed to establish a solid working relationship with a client over an extended period, then this relationship and the goodwill it represents is one of the most important assets your business owns. This is especially true for service providers. For most service providers, they can count on the fact that a large percentage of their future revenue is going to be directly connected to their existing clients.

One of the ways to make sure that your clients remain your clients is to provide value above and beyond what they are paying you for. This seems like common sense, but you’d be surprised how many consultants and accountants (for example) nickel and dime their customers. Over time, this will make your clients less likely to call you with a problem or include your in their planning process, which is a lost opportunity. So how do you make sure that your clients view you as an important resource?

One of the best things you can do is include planning for your clients in your everyday workweek. It may seem like unproductive and un-billable time to sit at your desk and think of things your customers could do to improve their business. But a better way to think of this is as an investment in your business’ future. As implied earlier, making a proactive investment in developing goodwill is a surefire way to actually developing it. Goodwill doesn’t just happen.

As CEO of my own project outsourcing company I often have to decide the best course of action for my business. I also have to think about ways to position the company for growth based on macro-economic trends and current competitive pressures. Sometimes I get ideas from reading articles, sometimes from meetings with my own vendors and other clients. It does not really matter where a good idea comes from. The bottom line is that if I come up with something that will help me grow my business, I usually try to think of how these ideas could be leveraged by my clients. Not every client can leverage every idea, but I can usually find one or two that can.

Sometimes I can help a client with execution, sometimes not. It doesn’t really matter. The fact is that my clients will now view me and my company as an important component of their planning process. As a vendor, it will be less likely that clients will cut us loose because we provide value beyond what they are paying for. This helps us serve as an extension of our clients’ businesses, which is good for our clients and good for us.

The bottom line is that you need to provide value beyond the services you are offering in order to be perceived as a true partner by your clients. You have to work at this and actually provide your clients with that extra value too, so it not easy. By proactively thinking this way your client relationships should be as close to bullet-proof as they can be and you will be more likely to receive future contracts references, which is how you can translate all that goodwill into revenue.